Commonwealth v. Nutter (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-035-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 13-P-918 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. WAYNE NUTTER. No. 13-P-918. Hampden. September 8, 2014. – April 8, 2015. Present: Berry, Kafker, & Maldonado, JJ. Rape. Child Abuse. Privileged Communication. Evidence, Privileged communication, Communication to clergyman, Polygraph test, Business record. Witness, Privilege, Polygraphic test. Constitutional Law, Polygraph test, Confrontation of witnesses. Due Process of Law, Polygraph test. Practice, Criminal, Mistrial, Conduct of prosecutor, New trial. Registrar of Motor Vehicles, Records. Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on February 10, 2011. The cases were tried before Peter A. Velis, J., and a motion for a new trial was heard by him. William W. Adams for the defendant. Katherine A. Robertson, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth. BERRY, J. A Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of two counts of aggravated rape and abuse of a child, G. L. c. 265, § 23A. In this appeal, the defendant claims that the trial judge erred in: (1) admitting inculpatory statements the defendant made to his former pastor during a telephone conversation, because the statements were protected by the priest-penitent privilege, G. L. c. 233, § 20A; (2) failing to grant a mistrial after the defendant’s wife testified that she had asked the defendant to take a lie detector test; and (3) admitting a certified copy of a record from the Registry of Motor Vehicles in violation of the defendant’s confrontation rights under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The defendant also claims the judge abused his discretion in denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial. In his motion for a new trial, the defendant claimed that there was prosecutorial misconduct in deliberately eliciting inadmissible testimony — i.e., the defendant’s wife’s statement that she had asked him to take a lie detector test. We affirm. 1. Background. The following is taken from the trial record. There was trial evidence that in approximately 2000, the defendant began sexually abusing his then six year old stepdaughter (victim). According to the victim’s testimony, the abuse continued until approximately 2010, when she was almost sixteen years old. In early October, 2010, the defendant met his wife at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Westfield for several hours to discuss their pending divorce.[1] During that meeting, the defendant’s wife asked the defendant if he had done anything sexual to the […]